Tchaikovsky Serenade Saturday, January 9, 2021 7:30 PM Livestreamed from Universal Preservation Hall Saratoga Springs, New York
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Tchaikovsky Serenade Saturday, January 9, 2021 7:30 PM Livestreamed from Universal Preservation Hall Saratoga Springs, New York David Alan Miller, conductor Welcome to the Albany Symphony’s 2020-21 Season Re-Imagined! The one thing I have missed more than anything else during the past few months has been spending time with you and our brilliant Albany Symphony musicians, discovering, exploring, and celebrating great musical works together. Our musicians and I are thrilled to be back at work, bringing you established masterpieces and gorgeous new works in the comfort and convenience of your own home. Originally conceived to showcase triumph over adversity, inspired by the example of Beethoven and his big birthday in December, our season’s programming continues to shine a light on the ways musical visionaries create great art through every season of life. We hope that each program uplifts and inspires you, and brings you some respite from the day-to-day worries of this uncertain world. It is always an honor to stand before you with our extraordinarily gifted musicians, even if we are now doing it virtually. Thank you so much for being with us; we have a glorious season of life- affirming, deeply moving music ahead. David Alan Miller Heinrich Medicus Music Director Tchaikovsky Serenade Saturday, January 9, 2021 | 7:30 PM Livestreamed from Universal Preservation Hall David Alan Miller, conductor Jessie Montgomery Banner (b. 1981) Jean Sibelius Andante Festivo (1865-1957) Caroline Shaw Entr’acte (b. 1982) George Walker Lyric for Strings (1922-2018) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Serenade for String Orchestra in C major, Op. 48 (1840-1893) I. Pezzo in forma di Sonatina II. Walzer III. Élégie IV. Finale (Tema Russo) Concert Talks Sponsor: TCHAIKOVSKY SERENADE - ORCHESTRA ROSTER VIOLIN I VIOLA Jamecyn Morey Daniel Brye Paula Oakes Dana Huyge Amanda Brin Ting-Ying Chang-Chien Sooyeon Kim Hannah Levinson Kae Nakano CELLO VIOLIN II Erica Pickhardt Mitsuko Suzuki Matthew Capobianco Emily Frederick Hikaru Tamaki Harriet Welther Ouisa Fohrhaltz BASS Bradley Aikman Luke Baker Taylor Abbitt Tchaikovsky Serenade – Program Notes The title of tonight’s concert may allude to Tchaikovsky (and you can’t go wrong with Tchaikovsky), but isn’t it great that the new year is kicking off with new sounds? Even though we know the music of Sibelius, there are probably few who are familiar with this particular work. And what a pleasure it will be to hear the 20th- and 21st century voices of Montgomery, Shaw, and Walker. Welcome, MMXXI! Jessie Montgomery Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, language, and social justice, placing her squarely as one of the most relevant interpreters of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post). Photo by Jiyang Chen Jessie was born and raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s during a time when the neighborhood was at a major turning point in its history. Artists gravitated to the hotbed of artistic experimentation and community development. Her parents – her father a musician, her mother a theater artist and storyteller – were engaged in the activities of the neighborhood and regularly brought Jessie to rallies, performances, and parties where neighbors, activists, and artists gathered to celebrate and support the movements of the time. It is from this unique experience that Jessie has created a life that merges composing, performance, education, and advocacy. Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African- American and Latinx string players. She currently serves as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. She was a two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition and was awarded a generous MPower grant to assist in the development of her debut album, Strum: Music for Strings (Azica Records). She has received additional grants and awards from the ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Composers Orchestra, the Joyce Foundation, and the Sorel Organization. Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Five Slave Songs (2018) commissioned for soprano Julia Bullock by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Records from a Vanishing City (2016) for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival, and Banner (2014) – written to mark the 200th anniversary of The Star-Spangled Banner – for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation. In the 2019-20 season, new commissioned works will be premiered by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the National Choral Society, and ASCAP Foundation. Jessie is also teaming up with composer-violinist Jannina Norpoth to reimagine Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha; it is being produced by Volcano Theatre and co-commissioned by Washington Performing Arts, Stanford University, Southbank Centre (London), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Additionally, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony will all perform Montgomery’s works this season. The New York Philharmonic has selected Jessie as one of the featured composers for their Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting equal voting rights in the United States to women. Other forthcoming works include a nonet inspired by the Great Migration, told from the perspective of Montgomery’s great-grandfather William McCauley and to be performed by Imani Winds and the Catalyst Quartet; a cello concerto for Thomas Mesa jointly commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, and The Sphinx Organization; and a new orchestral work for the National Symphony. Jessie began her violin studies, at the Third Street Music School Settlement, one of the oldest community organizations in the country. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and currently a member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist appearing regularly with her own ensembles, as well as with the Silkroad Ensemble and Sphinx Virtuosi. Jessie’s teachers and mentors include Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, Alice Kanack, Joan Tower, Derek Bermel, Mark Suozzo, Ira Newborn, and Laura Kaminsky. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University. Banner – Jessie Montgomery Banner is a tribute to the 200th Anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner, which was officially declared the American National Anthem in 1814 under the penmanship of Francis Scott Key. Scored for solo string quartet and string orchestra, Banner is a rhapsody on the theme of the Star Spangled Banner. Drawing on musical and historical sources from various world anthems and patriotic songs, I’ve made an attempt to answer the question: “What does an anthem for the 21st century sound like in today’s multi-cultural environment?” In 2009, I was commissioned by the Providence String Quartet and Community MusicWorks to write Anthem: A tribute to the historical election of Barack Obama. In that piece I wove together the theme from the Star Spangled Banner with the commonly named Black National Anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson (which coincidentally share the exact same phrase structure). Banner picks up where Anthem left off by using a similar backbone source in its middle section, but expands further both in the amount of references and also in the role play of the string quartet as the individual voice working both with and against the larger community of the orchestra behind them. The structure is loosely based on traditional marching band form where there are several strains or contrasting sections, preceded by an introduction, and I have drawn on the drum line chorus as a source for the rhythmic underpinning in the finale. Within the same tradition, I have attempted to evoke the breathing of a large brass choir as it approaches the climax of the “trio” section. A variety of other cultural Anthems and American folk songs and popular idioms interact to form various textures in the finale section, contributing to a multi- layered fanfare. The Star Spangled Banner is an ideal subject for exploration in contradictions. For most Americans the song represents a paradigm of liberty and solidarity against fierce odds, and for others it implies a contradiction between the ideals of freedom and the realities of injustice and oppression. As a culture, it is my opinion that we Americans are perpetually in search of ways to express and celebrate our ideals of freedom — a way to proclaim, “we’ve made it!” as if the very action of saying it aloud makes it so. And for many of our nation’s people, that was the case: through work songs and spirituals, enslaved Africans promised themselves a way out and built the nerve to endure the most abominable treatment for the promise of a free life. Immigrants from Europe, Central America and the Pacific have sought out a safe haven here and though met with the trials of building a multi-cultured democracy, continue to find rooting in our nation and make significant contributions to our cultural landscape. In 2014, a tribute to the U.S. National Anthem means acknowledging the contradictions, leaps and bounds, and milestones that allow us to celebrate and maintain the tradition of our ideals. - Jessie Montgomery Jean Sibelius The career of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was curious. Despite the fact that he lived longer than, say, Camille Saint-Saëns and Richard Strauss, both of whom lived into their 80s, he did not continue composing music until the end, as they did.